the, to them, mysterious sounds."

"What place is this?" Ralph asked.

"It is Kilmaknocket."

"Bless me!" Mr. Fitzgibbon exclaimed, "we are twenty miles away from
Ballyporrit if we are an inch."

"Then it's evident we can't get there to-day," Ralph said. "We must
have come more than that distance since we halted in the night. Now,
my good woman, I have a party of twenty men here, and we have lost our
way in the hills, and must stop here for the night. How many houses
are there in the village?"

"There are ten or twelve, sir."

"That is all right, then. We must quarter two men on each. I will pay
every one for the trouble it will give, and for something to eat,
which we want badly enough, for we have come at least twenty-five or
twenty-six miles, and probably ten more than that, and have had
nothing but a bit of bread since we started."

"It's heartily welcome you will be, sir," the woman said, "and we will
all do the best we can for you."

The men were now ordered to fall out. The sergeant proceeded with them
through the village, quartering two men on each house, while Ralph
went round to see what provisions were obtainable. Potatoes and black
bread were to be had everywhere, and he also was able to buy a
good-sized pig, which, in a very few minutes, was killed and cut up.

"We have reason to consider ourselves lucky indeed," Ralph said, as he
sat down with the excise officer half an hour later to a meal of
boiled potatoes and pork chops roasted over a peat fire. "It's
half-past four now, and will be pitch dark in another half-hour. If we
had not struck upon that stream we should have had another night out
among the hills."

Ralph's first measure after seeing his men quartered in the village
was to inquire for a boy who would carry a message to Ballyporrit, and
the offer of half a crown produced four or five lads willing to
undertake it. Ralph chose one of them, an active-looking lad of about
fifteen, tore out a leaf from his pocketbook, and wrote an account of
what had happened, and said that the detachment would be in by two
o'clock on the following day. Then directing it to Captain O'Connor or
Lieutenant Desmond, whichever might be in the village, he gave it to
the lad, who at once started at a trot along the road in the direction
from which they had come.

"He will be there in four hours," Mr. Fitzgibbon said. "It's a regular
road all the way, and he can't miss it even in the dark. It's lucky we
turne